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User:Jengod/Slavetraderbio

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Jilson Dove
"For Sale" Daily National Intelligencer and Washington Express, District of Columbia, August 4, 1834
Born
Virginia, U.S.

Jilson Dove (c. 1785 – June 14, 1853) was a resident of Washington, D.C. who worked at a number of occupations including restauranteur, real estate agent, and slave trader. He caught the attention of abolitionists due to his work as a local slave patroller. Dove would probably have been considered an "agent", meaning a second-tier trader who primarily concentrated on small-scale local deals, collecting enslaved people for resale to the larger interstate dealers.

Life and work edit

Dove was born Virginia around 1785.[1]

Dove was married in Baltimore in 1810 to Mary Drugan.[2] Dove served as a sergeant in the District of Columbia militia during the War of 1812.[3] In 1813, when he was about 28 years old, he announced in the newspaper that he was ending his business partnership but would continue in the brickmaking business independently.[4][a]

He advertised twice in the Alexandria Gazette in 1816, in February he had for sale some Waterloo-striped calico fabric,[5] and in June he offered newly arrived pickled oysters.[6] In 1819 he was suspended from his Masonic Lodge.[7] The same year, he was to take the oath of an insolvent debtor in an Alexandria courtroom.[8]

In spring 1820 he was advertising real estate to Alexandria buyers.[9] He was enumerated as a resident of Washington, D.C. at the time of the 1820 census.[10] His obituary later stated that he had moved from Virginia to D.C. in around 1820.[11] By 1821 he was operating of a tavern at the Red House Landing below Alexandria.[12] Two years later he was to be confined in prison as a debtor.[13] His fortunes seemed to turn somewhat after that, as he became the proprietor of the Union Hotel,[14] which boasted of its fine green turtle dinner,[15] and canvasback ducks available for either dinner service or for sale to home cooks.[16] By the end of the decade he operated and advertised an "elegant refectory" adjacent to a coffeehouse,[17] and wanted to buy and sell quality secondhand furniture.[18]

In June 1833, Benjamin Lundy, a highly influential early abolitionist, mentioned Jilson Dove in his newspaper Genius of Universal Emancipation:[19]

Last week, a very decent, orderly looking, colored woman, was coming over the bridge to our city to get employ, it is said. She was seen by a man, named Jilson Dove, a constable, who buys and catches negroes for the traders. The woman finding she was about to be taken to the pen or enclosure,—where all kidnapped and others are put, before taken to the south,—got loose, and attempted to run away from the constable—but he followed her so close, she had no way to escape but by jumping into the river, where she was drowned. No fuss or stir was made about it,—she was got out of the river, and buried,-and there the matter ended.[19]

It was in the 1830s that Dove turned to slave-trading on a continuing basis, although he continued to engage in other work. For example, in February and March of 1833 Dove was paid by U.S. Senator Henry Clay to drive his cattle between Kentucky and Pennsylvania.[20] In 1832 a Welsh newspaper reprinted several slave-trade ads from the Washington Intelligencer, including one of Washington Robey's, and commented that they would be read with "astonishment and disgust."[21] The first listed was placed by Jilson Dove and stated "Money ! Money ! Money !— I wish to purchase from twenty to thirty likely young Negroes of both sexes from twelve to twenty -five years of age. For all or part I will give more money than anyone in Washington City or Montgomery County, Md. Apply to the subscriber near the corner of the 13th and E streets Nov 24 JILSON DOVE."[21] In 1833, Dove was working out of the Hendley Tavern and was willing trade for houses for "servants," which was one of the preferred euphemisms used in polite discourse to describe enslaved black people.[22] In Slave-Trading in the Old South (1931), historian Frederic Bancroft wrote that: "Jilson Dove, probably a real estate agent, wished 'to purchase from forty to fifty Negroes of both sexes, from the age of twelve to twenty-five', and to give in exchange two two-story brick houses in the business part of Washington. Obviously he was agent for some interstate trader when he later 'wanted immediately from 25 to 30 negroes of both sexes'. As this was more than the District was likely to supply, it was an appeal to Maryland and Virginia. The trading in District slaves—which was relatively slight, spasmodic and carried on chiefly by agents—also comprised, of course, sales to settle estates, collect debts and pay for fines and jail fees."[23] The Journal of Negro History observed that "in 1837 Jilson Dove, in an advertisement in the National Intelligencer, offered his services as an agent to secure for the people of the District of Columbia servants for their own use, also to dispose of those servants whom the owners desired to be kept in the District".[24] Historian Steven Deyle wrote that slave traders "adjusted their practices to cater to their customers' (and society's) paternalistic tastes...Many made direct appeals to owners' paternalistic sensibilities...Some even appeared to specialize in this market. Most of Jilson Dove's notices were for purchases in the interregional trade, but during the summer of 1837 he offered 'his services as an agent to the citizens of Washington to furnish them with servants for their own use. Persons wishing to selli their servants, to remain in this place, will please give me a call, as I can at all times get them a good home.'"[25] In 1838 Dove was offering to trade land in Illinois for "negroes".[26] That year he apparently traded out of Lloyd's Steamboat Hotel on Seventh Street "opposite the Center Market House".[27] In 1839 he offered a house and lot in exchange for valuable servants.[28]

As the decade turned, Dove began was working as a slave trader from a location on Pennsylvania Avenue.[29]

According to a history of Native American treaty delegations in Washington, Dove apparently also was known to intercede in potential scraps between intoxicated indigenous men and local street toughs: "Street gangs turned the intemperance of the Winnebagos into a cruel sport. They would wait outside the hotel for the inebriated Indians to stray their way and then 'beat them severly & [were] even disposed to kill them.' The Winnebagos were frequently saved from catastrophe by Jilson Dove, a street vendor who took a samaritan-like interest in their welfare. Described as 'a very powerful & resolute man,' Dove would rescue the Winnebagos from the hooligans and return them to their quarters. The Indian Office gave Dove eighty dollars in appreciation for this valuable service after the Winnebagos left Washington."[30]

Dove seemed to slow down a bit in the 1840s. He advertised "cash for negroes" in 1842,[31] and reported that he had found a pocketbook on the road to Bladensburg containing cash and a gold ring.[32] Dove died in Washington, D.C. in 1853 at age 68.[11]

See also edit

Notes edit

  1. ^ Coincidentally, at least two other Chesapeake region slave traders had worked as bricklayers and/or bricklayers: Moses Hindes and James F. Purvis of Baltimore.

References edit

  1. ^ "Entry for Robert Allen and Ann Allen, 1850" – via FamilySearch.
  2. ^ "Maryland Marriages, 1666-1970", , FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:F4V9-TQH : 16 January 2020), Jilson Dove, 1810.
  3. ^ "United States War of 1812 Index to Service Records, 1812–1815", , FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:Q29K-9TRN : Sun Mar 10 08:13:54 UTC 2024), Entry for Jilson Dove, from 1812 to 1815
  4. ^ "Dissolution of Partnership". United States' Telegraph. July 28, 1813. p. 3. Retrieved 2024-05-11.
  5. ^ "Waterloo stripe calico". Alexandria Gazette. February 24, 1816. p. 2. Retrieved 2024-05-12.
  6. ^ "Pickled oysters". Alexandria Gazette. June 6, 1816. p. 2. Retrieved 2024-05-12.
  7. ^ Columbia, Freemasons Grand Lodge of the District of (1898). Proceedings of the Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of the District of Columbia. Grand Lodge.
  8. ^ "District of Columbia, Alexandria County - oath of an insolvent debtor". Alexandria Gazette. October 6, 1819. p. 4. Retrieved 2024-05-11.
  9. ^ "For sale, a tract of land". Alexandria Gazette. April 14, 1820. p. 3. Retrieved 2024-05-12.
  10. ^ "United States Census, 1820", , FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XHLQ-5CF : Mon Mar 11 00:44:22 UTC 2024), Entry for Jrlson Dove, 1820.
  11. ^ a b "Died". The Daily Republic. June 15, 1853. p. 3. Retrieved 2024-05-11.
  12. ^ "Red House Landing". Alexandria Gazette. April 4, 1821. p. 1. Retrieved 2024-05-11.
  13. ^ "District of Columbia, Washington County". Daily National Intelligencer and Washington Express. January 2, 1823. p. 4. Retrieved 2024-05-11.
  14. ^ "Union Hotel". Washington Gazette. June 29, 1824. p. 3. Retrieved 2024-05-12.
  15. ^ "Fine Green Turtle". Washington Gazette. July 26, 1824. p. 3. Retrieved 2024-05-12.
  16. ^ "Union Hotel". Daily National Journal. January 3, 1825. p. 4. Retrieved 2024-05-11.
  17. ^ "Elegant Refectory". Daily National Journal. November 12, 1828. p. 3. Retrieved 2024-05-12.
  18. ^ "Money for secondhand furniture". Daily National Journal. January 30, 1829. p. 3. Retrieved 2024-05-12.
  19. ^ a b Lundy (1833), p. 128.
  20. ^ Clay, Henry (October 17, 2014). The Papers of Henry Clay: Candidate, Compromiser, Whig, March 5, 1829-December 31, 1836. University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 978-0-8131-5672-9.
  21. ^ a b "American Papers". Caernarfon and Denbigh Herald. April 14, 1832. p. 3. Retrieved 2024-05-10.
  22. ^ "Jilson Dove - 1833". Daily National Intelligencer and Washington Express. January 16, 1833. p. 1. Retrieved 2024-05-11.
  23. ^ Bancroft (2023), pp. 48–49.
  24. ^ LaPrade (1926), p. 31.
  25. ^ Deyle (2005), p. 222.
  26. ^ "Negroes Wanted". Daily National Intelligencer and Washington Express. May 24, 1838. p. 4. Retrieved 2024-05-11.
  27. ^ Fiske, David (January 18, 2016). Solomon Northup's Kindred: The Kidnapping of Free Citizens before the Civil War. Bloomsbury Publishing USA. p. 19. ISBN 978-1-4408-3665-7.
  28. ^ "House and Lot for Sale". Daily National Intelligencer and Washington Express. May 7, 1839. p. 1. Retrieved 2024-05-12.
  29. ^ Forret (2020), p. 4.
  30. ^ Viola, Herman J. (1995). Diplomats in Buckskins: A History of Indian Delegations in Washington City. University of Oklahoma Press. p. 128. ISBN 978-0-8061-9935-1.
  31. ^ "Cash for Negroes". Daily National Intelligencer and Washington Express. September 1, 1842. p. 1. Retrieved 2024-05-11.
  32. ^ "Pocket-Book Found". Daily National Intelligencer and Washington Express. August 8, 1845. p. 1. Retrieved 2024-05-12.

Sources edit

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